New year, new us

Here’s a riddle: What is meant to make but never to keep?

Answer: A New Year’s resolution. According to psychology research from the University of Calgary, our efforts won't come to fruition if results don't come instantly.

But we can’t always expect instantaneous results. We can’t reasonably expect to derive benefits immediately or affect immediate positive change. Sometimes it’s a marathon, not a sprint, as pointed out by University of Virginia President Teresa Sullivan. She was talking about changing campus culture, and so should we.

With the new year should come a more positive campus culture that encourages dialogue on campus regarding mental health, sexual assault, race, religion and politics. It’s time to finally make this resolution and to keep it. This is a marathon that we’ll be running not for the next week, two weeks, six months or year. It’s one we’ll be running for many years, but this indeterminacy should not daunt us.

As a matter of fact, it’s one we’ve already begun, but one we have yet to persevere in, perhaps in hope of seeing the finish line. We’ve established the Mental Health Initiative Board, planned an annual Mental Health Week and most recently passed a referendum for greater transparency about withdrawal policies in relation to mental health concerns. We’ve lowered the burden of proof for cases of sexual assault and rape and put an extra $140,000 in funding toward Sexual Harassment/Assault Advising, Resources and Education this year. We’ve marched to protest the grand jury decision on officer Darren Wilson's case, the largest student and faculty protest in years, as well as staged a walkout and die-in to protest both the Eric Garner and Ferguson grand jury decisions. We’ve sent around petitions to students, faculty and alumni to sign on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We’ve even taken it to social media, denouncing yaks on Tiger Microaggressions.

We have reached a mile marker, but this marathon is far from over. More than ever, students remain wary, even fearful, of going to CPS, anticipating compulsion to withdraw due to mental health issues. No student should ever not be able to seek help. We successfully enacted policy reform. We held conversations between students and the administration regarding mental health, only to make more apparent the fears that students harbor about the issue. We have yet to engender security, openness and a campus culture that does not affix stigma to imperfection or vulnerability.

The University was found guilty of Title IX violations back in November, and the school undeniably took concrete, efficacious steps toward protecting students’ well-being. But we still have a full marathon to run before we fully address the University's explicit historical problem of sexual assault, dating back to 1987 with horrific backlash at a Take Back the Night vigil for victims of sexual assault. No policy measure will effectively put an end to rape culture and frat culture (or, rather, Street culture). But by eradicating the stigma to reporting sexual assault, and by thoroughly and impartially investigating each case — without regard to gender — there’s hope of reaching the finish line.

There has been a reactivation of a spirit of protest and activism on campus, as with the march to protest Darren Wilson’s fate. Nonetheless, we see a preponderance of bigoted, condemning yaks on Yik Yak, ascribing fault to people solely based on race in light of the slew of protests. And we have many a mile to run before we can encourage even more students to be politically and socially active in protesting both police brutality and the killing of police officers.

While each milestone should exhort us to push further, we’ve also taken regressed in some cases. We’ve raised our voice on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by writing and sending out petitions advocating for the University to divest from companies supporting Israel’s occupation of the West Bank on the one hand, and a counter-petition opposing the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement on the other. But people have proceeded to stifle our voice by vandalizing a Gaza memorial set up by the Princeton Committee on Palestine, honoring both Israeli and Palestinian lives lost. People have torn down posters spreading the word about both petitions. This sort of activism is deplorable, and our campus should be able to foster activism without harassment or antagonism.

Then there’s the Facebook page “Tiger Microaggressions,” which reports instances of “microaggression.” Nevertheless, it offers no clear parameters for what exactly constitutes a microaggression. Hence, absolutely anything can qualify as such, and as Zeena Mubarak pointed out in her column, “[T]he potency of such [offensive] yaks is severely diluted when other less inflammatory statements are presented on the same page in the same manner.” We should be combating racism, sexism and prejudice, but we should also practice discretion in what actually qualifies as an “aggression.”

The National Review listed “Tiger Microaggressions” as the number one most politically correct moment on college campuses in 2014, but this is no singularity. The status quo expresses a disconcerting level of comfort with political correctness, but when anything can be deemed offensive or marginalizing, it has gone too far. We can say anything and face being censured for being “politically incorrect,” be it as students in daily conversation or as administration officials reconsidering school policy. We’d rather preserve decorum and good manners over legal matters, such as rape and involuntary withdrawal, to evade brutal truths and to save face, just as the University of Virginia has done. And Princeton is far from inculpable.

Undoubtedly, we’ve taken huge strides. But it’s not enough when our campus still remains generally averse to open, effective discourse. Our new year is the time for a new us and a reformed, more positive campus culture.

Sarah Sakha is a freshman from Scottsdale, Ariz. She can be reached at ssakha@princeton.edu.